I slammed my fist against the counter until the wood shivered, sending my scattered notes and half?finished pages tumbling to the floor. The plastic click of my laptop hitting the tiles made my stomach drop. Instinctively I wanted to retrieve it, to apologize to the cheap machine for my outburst. But I couldn’t stop. The screen had been staring back at me for hours, a blank canvas that I kept filling only to erase, paragraph after paragraph, until the words vanished like smoke.

  I hate the characters I’m forced to write. I hate the publisher who tells me they’re “likable” and that my “shallow, market?friendly” stories will move the bestsellers list. “What sells,” I whispered to the empty kitchen, wondering if the word still meant anything to me. I’m at a point where a book sells because it bears my name, not because anyone cares about the story inside. Do I have to keep churning out formulaic romance for a paycheck, or can I finally demand something real?

  I propped my elbows on the counter, letting my head sag under the weight of my own frustration. If only I could pour that weight into something that would lift me. The resentment I’ve built up over the years, against my publisher, my editor, everyone who has tried to reshape my voice, has become a living thing. Readers want escapism, yes; they also want characters they can recognize in themselves. How can I give them that if I can’t even recognize the people I’m writing?

  I knelt among the crumpled sheets, scooping them up one by one. My laptop lay untouched, its sleek surface unmarred. If it could grant me an extension, I’d take it without a second thought. Maureen, my agent, needs the first ten chapters by tomorrow. I’ve told her I’m finished, if only in my head. Truth be told, I have a single, shaky chapter and a mountain of doubt. How can I make two protagonists fall in love when I can’t stand the versions of them I’ve been forced to produce?

  The phone’s shrill ringtone cut through the silence, a sound I’ve come to dread more than love. It’s ten o’clock. I could let it go to voicemail, pretend I’m asleep, but if I answer I’ll hear exactly how close Maureen is to pulling the plug on me. Maybe that’s the push I need, to write the rest, ugly as they may be, and let the editors shred them later. I took a slow, steady breath and braced for the call.

  “Blair, darling! How are you? I know you’re working hard being my favorite client, after all,” Maureen chirped, her voice a warm blur of nostalgia about our shared beginnings and how far we’ve both come. I listened, nodding silently as she rattled off memories of our first meeting, of the way we’d both clawed our way out of the system. It took her three minutes to get to the point.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “You’ll have the chapters first thing tomorrow, right? Jack’s eager to start editing,” she said, her tone slipping just enough to make me hear the underlying urgency.

  I hesitated, feeling my brain scramble for a lie that would sound plausible. “I’m—well, I’m not exactly happy with how they’ve turned out. Could I have a little more time..”

  Maureen’s disappointment was audible even through the receiver. “I know you’ve struggled with this book from day one. I know you weren’t thrilled about the changes we made to your characters.”

  That was an understatement. I’d grown up in foster care, bouncing from one house to the next, learning early that survival meant swallowing pride and doing whatever was asked of you. I built my career on that same stubborn resilience, typing my way out of the shadows. The thought of being told to cut off my arm and still expect me to write love?struck protagonists made my throat tighten.

  “Those chapters need to be in by tomorrow. If they’re not perfect, Jack can fix that. But we’ve already stretched the deadline several times. We can’t stall any longer,” she said, a pause hanging heavy before she pressed on. “You’ll have them tomorrow, right?”

  “Of course,” I managed, feeling the lie settle like a stone in my chest. I wanted to tell Maureen that I couldn’t possibly carve emotion from characters I no longer recognized, that I needed a break, that I was a writer who had been forged in hardship and deserved a moment of breathing room. But I couldn’t afford to lose the only contract that kept the lights on.

  “Great. I’ll touch base first thing in the morning when I receive the files,” she finished. The line went dead, and the silence that followed felt louder than any argument.

  I stared at the clock. Eight past ten. I had twelve hours to rest; if rest even existed for me, and to write roughly fifteen thousand words. If I could push out sixteen hundred words an hour, I’d have three hours of breathing space before the next call. It was a cruel math, but it was all I had.

  I turned back to my laptop, felt the cool metal under my fingertips, and let a surge of frustration rise. I grabbed the bottle of vodka I keep for “rare occasions” breakups, birthdays, the occasional creative crisis, and poured a generous amount into a mug. I didn’t plan to get drunk; I just needed the edge, the blurred line where the words might finally feel less like a chore and more like a confession.

  I raised the mug to my lips, inhaled the sharp scent, and whispered to the empty kitchen, “If I have to write this junk, at least I’ll be buzzed while I do it.” I mean it works on making walking red flags seem green why not my characters.